


homecoming

by fleurmatisse



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Naomi and her specialties, Season/Series 13 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 14:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurmatisse/pseuds/fleurmatisse
Summary: He hasn’t moved since Dean left. He hasn’t said a word.





	homecoming

He hasn’t moved since Dean left. He hasn’t said a word. Mary and Bobby ask him a million different ways;  _ what happened _ ,  _ where’s Dean _ ,  _ where’s Sam, where’s Jack, goddammit, Castiel what  _ happened? He links his hands behind his neck and he sits. The absence of Dean swells against his ribs until he feels he might burst. 

And then he hears Jack, small and scared and hurt. 

_ Castiel? _

It cuts through the buzzing in his head, gets him back on his feet. Mary follows close on his heels, and they go and get their boys.

 

Time passes. Castiel splits it between keeping Sam from burning out in his increasingly desperate search for a way to exorcise Michael and trying to convince Jack none of this is his fault. Both are mostly done in vain, as he knows both Sam’s desperation and Jack’s guilt as if they were his own. In the rare times that they’re both asleep, Castiel takes to sitting in Dean’s room, his forehead resting against steepled fingers—the image of a prayer with nothing to pray to.

Sometimes Mary will take him out of the bunker, and for a brief time he can breathe in her silence. She doesn’t push him to speak, but the option is there. He doesn’t say  _ I miss him _ or  _ I love him _ or  _ I’m so angry with him _ . The sentiment is shared.

 

In the end, it’s Naomi who expels Michael and traps him in Heaven, makes him a living battery. Castiel stays in the room as she digs through Dean’s brain until he can’t breathe and Sam helps him to sit in the hall, Mary remaining to keep an eye on Naomi. Sam goes back in once Castiel stops wheezing, and not long after his return, light flares around the cracks of the doors before extinguishing completely. Castiel feels the exact moment Dean takes a breath, and the pressure that’s made a home in his chest finally bursts out of his mouth as a sob. 

The door opens and closes. Naomi is escorted out of the bunker. Cas is shaky on his feet as he joins Sam and Dean and Mary, vision blurred behind the tears that just keep coming. Dean looks just as unbalanced, a hand still on Sam’s shoulder. Their eyes meet, and in the next instant Dean is in his arms, too warm and breathing unsteadily but  _ there _ and  _ alive _ and  _ safe _ . 

_ Cas _ , Dean says, pressed against his shoulder. Cas shifts so he isn’t getting snot in Dean’s hair, and Dean holds on tighter. As if Cas would want to be anywhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ winkingwinchesters for more Sad Spn content


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